Method and system for collaborative web browsing

ABSTRACT

A Web browser is augmented with collaborative features to support community aware browsing sessions. The augmentation provided includes a data mining plug-in for the browser to establish collaborative context based on Uniform Resource Locator (URL) meta data keywords, or mined topics, and a collaboration co-browser (explorer bar) which displays a collaboration space, called CollabSpace, corresponding to the document that is displayed in the main browser. With this augmented browser, a user can perform various collaboration functions from the collaboration explorer bar, including viewing the online status of members of the CollabSpace, communicate with members of the CollabSpace via electronic mail (e-mail), instant messaging or discussion threads, and register as a member of the CollabSpace. CollabSpaces can be established and associated with one or more Web documents, meta data keywords or topics.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This invention is related to the invention disclosed in copending patentapplication Ser. No. 10/662,617 filed Sep. 15, 2003, by Nitin Nayak,Fenno F. Heath III, Jenny S. Li, Hui Lei, Mitchell A. Cohen, RakeshMohan, Josef Schiefer, Stephen V. Stibler, Chung Sheng Li, and MarounTouma for “A Method and System for Providing a Common CollaborationFramework Accessible from Within Multiple Applications”, and assigned toa common assignee herewith. The disclosure of application Ser. No.10/662,617 is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention generally relates to collaborative data processingsystems and, more particularly, to a method and system for collaborativeWeb browsing which allows the collective knowledge and experience of anappropriate community to be leveraged during browser sessions.

2. Background Description

Web browsing is usually a solitary activity. Routinely, people browsevarious sites to research topics, technologies, markets, competition andto obtain reference information in their daily work and lives. Given thevast quantity of distributed information hosted on the Web, people areoften confused or lost. There is a need to provide support and help toindividuals' browsing activity.

Some Web sites centrally serve as a navigation assistant. These Websites accompany a user from pate to page, recommending documents orhyperlinks that may be important to the user. This is done on a per Website basis, and is not part of every Web site an individual may visit.Recommendations can be made based on a combination of factors, includingthe user's browsing experience, other users' browsing patterns, otherusers' explicit recommendations, and analysis of document content.Although such systems are useful for helping users find relateddocuments, they do not facilitate direct people-to-people collaboration.

Web browsing should be more community aware or team based. Many have hadthe experience of browsing a Web page that they could not quiteunderstand but thought it might somehow be relevant to their search orthe company's business. Community or team based Web browsing has thepotential of benefitting both the individual user and the corporate userduring browsing sessions. As users browse various pages with variouscontent, analysis of the browsed page can help identify related pages,or other individuals, in the public or corporate community who haveknowledge about the page or page content. As members of the communityadapt to community aware browsing, knowledge bases and topical supportgroups can be established pro-actively. Confidential corporatecommunities or teams can be formed in order to leverage each other'sknowledge and experience during browser sessions.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a methodand system to augment the browser experience for all types of users tomake browsing a more team based experience instead of an isolated,individual experience.

According to the invention, a Web browser is augmented withcollaborative features to support community aware browsing sessions. Theaugmentation provided includes:

-   -   a data mining plug-in for the browser to establish collaborative        context based on Uniform Resource Locator (URL) meta data        keywords, or mined topics; and    -   a collaboration co-browser (referred to as an explorer bar        hereinafter) which displays a collaboration space, called        CollabSpace, corresponding to the document that is displayed in        the main browser.

With this augmented browser, a user can perform various collaborationfunctions from the collaboration explorer bar, including viewing theonline status of members of the CollabSpace, communicate with members ofthe CollabSpace via electronic mail (e-mail), instant messaging ordiscussion threads, and register as a member of the CollabSpace.CollabSpaces can be established and associated with one or more Webdocuments, meta data keywords or topics.

This invention allows the collective knowledge and experience of anappropriate community to be leveraged during browser sessions. It alsoallows collaboration to take place as an integral part of the browsingbehavior, as opposed to a separate, decoupled activity. The inventionserves to establish a collaboration/knowledge farm for team or communitybased browsing and collaborative contexts.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be betterunderstood from the following detailed description of a preferredembodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the architecture of the contextualcollaboration explorer bar, called the Collab-bar, according to theinvention, and depicts a toolbar, explorer bar and a contextualcollaboration server;

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the collaboration toolbar of the preferredembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the explorer bar or co-browser of thepreferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a screen print of a Web page for illustrating the applicationof the invention to a collaborative Web search;

FIG. 5 is a screen print of the Web page of FIG. 4 with the Collab-barof FIG. 3 superimposed;

FIG. 6 is a data flow diagram showing the process of the Collab-barconfiguration;

FIG. 7 is a data flow diagram showing the Collab-bar Web applicationrunning on the contextual collaboration server that renders theCollab-bar user interface (UI); and

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing the architecture of the overall systemwhich supports the collaborative Web browsing according to theinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

The contextual explorer bar, called the Collab-bar, according to theinvention increases the ability of finding the right people, discussionthreads, and other tools, at the right times. When installed andconfigured, the Collab-bar runs within a browser, such as InternetExplorer, as a tool bar and an explorer bar combination, to bringcollaborations (people, discussion groups, and tools) specific to the“current browsing context”. The tool bar provides functionality forlog-in and retrieval and management of contextual collaborations, whilethe explorer bar provides details of a specific collaboration. TheCollab-bar has ability for some end-user configuration andcustomization, which is saved in the operating system (OS) registry,such as Windows registry.

Referring now to the drawings, and more particularly to FIG. 1, there isshown the architecture of the Collab-bar according to the invention.There are five components in the Collab-bar: the Collab-bar Toolbar 10;the Collab-bar Explorer bar 12; a Javascript communication medium 14;the Collab-bar configuration 16; and the Collab-bar Handler, which ispart of the contextual collaboration server 18. The Collab-bar Toolbar10 is a COM (Component Object Model) band object which is contained bythe Rebar Control that holds Internet Explorer's toolbars. It isimplemented in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) using Microsoft ActiveTemplate Library (ATL). The Collab-bar explorer bar 12 is contained byInternet Explorer and implemented in HTML using ATL. Both the Collab-barToolbar 10 and the Collab-bar Explorer bar 12 are registered in theWindows registry. Communication between the Collab-bar 10 and theCollab-bar Explorer bar 12 and the contextual collaboration server 18 isfacilitated by the Java Script communication medium 16. The contextualcollaboration server 18 includes several modules which, in the preferredembodiment, include a contextual collaboration module 181, a securitymodule 182, a Lotus collaboration module 183, a WAS (WebsphereApplication Server) module 184, and a Collab-bar handler 185. Thecontextual collaboration module 181 is a context manager that managesrelationships of collaboration elements, like people, topics, teamrooms, discussions, documents, etc. The security module is a basicsecurity element that identifies users and can classify those users asvarious role players in the system. The Lotus collaboration module 183is used to integrate with collaboration modalities like team rooms,instant messaging, application sharing, etc. The IBM WebsphereApplication Server is a high-performance and scalable transaction enginefor dynamic e-business applications. The WAS module 184 is themiddleware component of the Websphere Application Server. The Collab-barhandler 185 generates the contents of the toolbar in a JSP (Java ServerPage) at the WAS server. The Collab-bar contains two user interface (UI)components that run as Internet Explorer Band Objects; the Toolbar andthe Explorer bar, both of which are ATL components. The first one, theCollaboration Toolbar, is shown in FIG. 2, which hosts command buttonsto retrieve, manage contextual Collaboration Spaces and command buttonsfor authentication and configuration. In the illustration of theimplementation of the Collaboration Toolbar shown in FIG. 2, there isfirst of all a contextual collaboration bar logo 21, here shown as w3,for “World Wide Web”, although any logo could be adopted. Next, there isa synchronize button 22 which us used to refresh the list of currentcontextual Collaboration Spaces, here referred to as CollabSpaces. Apull down menu 23 provides a list of CollabSpaces. When the down arrowbutton is pressed, the menu shows a list of contextual collaborationspaces accessible by the user, based on the current context. The ManageCollabSpaces button 24 invokes the collaboration space administrativeconsole through which new collaboration spaces can be created andexisting collaboration spaces can be edited. Collaboration spaces canalso be associated with one or more Web documents, topics and meta data.A second pull down menu 25 provides a recommended URL list. When thedown button is pressed, a list of recommended URLs that are relevant tothe current collaboration context is displayed. The Logon/Logoff button26 is a toggle button used for logging onto and logging off from acollaboration space server. The Enable/Disable button 27 is a togglebutton for enabling and disabling the collaboration space toolbar.Finally, the CollabSpace Bar Help button 28 is used to access generalhelp.

The toolbar can be invoked from the Internet Explorer “View/Toolbars”menu. Invoking the toolbar does not log in the user to the contextualcollaboration server. The user is explicitly expected to log-in to thecollaboration server. Once logged in, the user will appear as a passivecollaboration member for other members of a contextual collaborationspace. The user is expected to enable the toolbar for retrieving thecomputed context sensitive collaborations based on the browsingexperience. Disabling the collaboration toolbar will not interact withthe contextual collaboration server for active content mining.

As mentioned, the toolbar band object is essentially a COM (ComponentObject Model) object that exists within a Rebar Control container thatholds Internet Explorer's toolbars. Being a tool band COM object, thisobject is registered as an OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) in-processserver with CATID_InfoBand (category identification) component category.This control hosts the Internet Explorer Web Browser control, thusgiving access to script parsing, rendering and browsing facilities ofInternet Explorer. This makes the communication with the contextualcollaboration server easier. By default, the user interface (UI) of thecontrol is provided by the Web Browser Control. This covers the entirearea of the control. The UI is rendered based on the HTML markupgenerated by the collaboration bar handler component of the contextualcollaboration server through servlet and JSP (Java Server Page)technology.

The collaboration server component 81 maintains collaborative contentand allows for the collaborative Web browser to interact with thecollaboration

The toolbar listens for OLE events (that might potentially change thecurrent collaboration context, like document load complete event)generated by the Internet Explorer main browser control. When the toolbar receives such events, those events are communicated back to thecollaboration server so a new set of contextual collaborations can berendered in the toolbar.

The second user interface (UI) component in the Collab-bar is theCollaboration Explorer, shown in FIG. 3, which presents thecollaboration details, such as people, discussion threads, and tools.The explorer bar can be invoked from the Internet Explorer“View/Explorer bar” menu. The same explorer bar can also be invoked fromthe toolbar when a specific collaboration is selected or an existingcollaboration is refreshed. The top bar 31 in the Collaboration Explorercontains the brand name, here CollabSpace Explorer. On the right handedge of the top bar 31 is a close button 32 “x” which, when pressed,closes the CollabSpace explorer window. The explorer window can bere-opened either through choosing a CollabSpace from the CollabSpacelist on the toolbar or by refreshing the current CollabSpace with therefresh action button or by choosing the Internet Explorer menu item“View/Explorer Bar/Contextual Collaboration”. The CollabSpace Explorerwindow has two panes; a members pane 33 and a discussions pane 34. Themembers pane 33 lists the current collaborating members. Instantmessaging and e-mail can be invoked for each of the currentcollaborating members. The discussions pane 34 lists passive discussionchains in the collaboration. A collaboration member can post and respondto discussions or create new discussion threads (CollabSpaces).

FIG. 4 is a screen print of a Web page showing the Collaboration Toolbar20 located just below the Internet Explorer Toolbar 40. FIG. 5 shows theCollab-bar Explorer bar component 30 overlying part of the Web page. TheCollaboration Toolbar 20 provides dynamic collaboration elements thatcan be aggregated by perhaps some simple URL check or even simple datamining of the page content. The Collab-bar Explorer bar 30 addscollaboration elements that are part of the CollabSpace.

Being COM (Component Object Module) objects, the toolbar and explorerbar do not communicate directly with the Web Collab-bar application. Thecommunication between the band objects and the contextual collaborationserver 18 is handled through a Java Script communication medium 16, asshown in FIG. 6. FIG. 6 is similar to FIG. 1 but shows the data flowbetween the several components. In FIGS. 6 and 1, like referencenumerals represent the same objects.

The toolbar band object 10 reads the user configuration settings fromthe Collab-bar configuration (in the Windows registry) 14 andinitializes user session which can be accessed by the contextualcollaboration server 18. The COM object communicates with the contextualcollaboration server 18 through ATL HTML component 61, through the HTMLmarkup 62 and Java Script communication medium 16.

When an event occurs in the browser (like a new document is loaded), thetoolbar 10 picks up the event through the OLE (Object Linking andEmbedding) event handling mechanism and communicates the event to thecollaboration server 18 so a new set of context dependent collaborationscan be retrieved. Again, this communication is handled through the samepath; i.e., toolbar COM object to ATL HTML component 61 to HTML markup62 to Java Script communication medium 16 to collaboration server 18.

Similarly, communications between the Collab Explorer bar 12 and thecontextual collaboration server 18 are handled through the ATL HTMLcomponent 64 to the HTML markup 65 to Java Scrip communication medium 16to collaboration server 18.

User parameters for the tool bar and explorer bar are customized throughthe windows registry. During the initialization of the Collab-bar, theseparameters are read and saved in the user session. These configurationsettings are customizable by the user. The settings control:

-   -   where the collaboration server is located;    -   automatically enable at log-on; and    -   activate recommendations based on content mining.        The collaboration tool bar provides command buttons to modify        these configuration settings.

The Collab-bar (toolbar and explorer bar look and feel) is renderedthrough the Collab-bar Web application running on the contextualcollaboration server 18. Both the band objects rely on ATL HTMLcomponent for rending the user interface (UI). These components point tothe Collab-bar view handler for look and feel. As shown in FIG. 7, theToolbarServlet 71 handles the events on the toolbar and is alsoresponsible for bringing the right set of command buttons, based on thestate of the toolbar. ExplorerbarServlet is responsible for renderingthe collaboration details in the explorer bar.

The Toolbar Servlet 71 is used to process user interaction with thetoolbar. For each user interaction described in FIG. 2, one of a set ofsupporting servlets in FIG. 7 will be called to process the userinteraction. After any of the servlets in FIG. 7, except for theCollabSpaceServlet 78, the Toolbar.jsp 79 will be called to create a newrendering of the toolbar 20 as can be seen in FIG. 2 in response to theuser's interaction with the toolbar. The Analyzer Servlet 72 is used todata mine the URL, Meta Data, or key topics from the user's mostrecently loaded Web page in FIG. 4. The mining is used to determine whatrelated links, Collabspaces, buddies, etc., should be brought into viewof the user. The Logon Servlet 73 is invoked when a user selects theLogon/Logoff toggle 26 in FIG. 2, and is used to logon the user to theContextual Collaboration Server 18. The Logoff Servlet 74 is invokedwhen a user selects Logon/Logoff toggle 26 in FIG. 2 as well, and isused to end the user's session with the Contextual Collaboration Server18. The EnableServlet 75 is invoked when a user selects theEnable/Disable toggle 27 in FIG. 2, and is used to enable the Analysis,Explorer Bar, and Toolbar generation of collaboration elements. TheDisableServlet 76 is invoked when a user selects the Enable/Disabletoggle 27 in FIG. 2, and is used to disable all the Analysis andgeneration of Toolbar and Explorer bar elements. The Help.html 77 isdisplayed when the user selects the CollabSpace Bar Help button 28 inFIG. 2, and is merely used to display a help page for how to use theToolbar. The ManageSpacesServlet 710 is invoked when a user selects theManage Collab Spaces button 24 in FIG. 2, and is used to display anadministration console for the user to create, delete, edit, variousCollabspaces. The CollabSpaceServlet 78 is invoked when a user selectsthe Contextual Collab Spaces button 23 via the explorer bar, and is usedto interact with the Contextual Collaboration Server 18. TheCollabSpaceServlet 78 is responsible for rendering the collaborationdetails in the explorer bar.

Single sign-on between toolbar, explorer bar with view on discussionthreads (CollabSpace), and sametime is achieved through theInternational Business Machines (IBM) WebSphere Application Server basedsecurity. The IBM WebSphere Application Server is a high-performance andextremely scalable transaction engine for dynamic electronic business(e-business) applications. When the user selects the log in commandbutton 26 on the toolbar, it sends a request to the LongonServlet 73which is protected in the Collaboration server 18. As a result, the userreceives a password challenge response. Upon submitting the rightcredentials, the application server creates an LTPA Token and pushesdown the credentials to the client through a browser cookie. Since allthe browser components (main browser control, toolbar ATL HTMLcomponent, and explorer bar ATL HTML component) share the same processspace, they share the cookies too. So when collaboration is invoked inthe explorer bar, the explorer bar requests the server for collaborationdetails passing through the cookie. This cookie is cleared when aspecified timeout occurs, or the user explicitly logs out from thetoolbar.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing the architecture of the overallsystem, and this embodiment realizes the “miner” part, 806 and 814, ofthe architecture as the AnalyzerServlet 72 in FIG. 7. In FIG. 8, theaugmented browser 80, comprising an Internet Explorer browser 801, atoolbar 802, an explorer bar 803, a monitor 804, and a classifier 805 isprovided with a miner plug-in 806. The browser 801 populates with Websites and notifies the monitor 804 when new documents arrive. Themonitor 804, in turn, attempts to classify the newly loaded contentusing the classifier 805. The classifier 805 uses the content, URL ormeta data associated with the loaded page and passes this information tothe miner 806 in order to identify content. The monitor 804 thenattempts to discover related CollabSpaces, URL links, and role playersthat might be helpful to the loaded content in the browser 801. Once themonitor 804 has completed classifying the content and collecting therelated collaboration context, the monitor instructs the toolbar 802 andthe explorer bar 803 to populate with the corresponding collaborativeelements that are related to the current browsing context.

The collaboration server component 81 maintains collaborative contentand allows for the collaborative Web browser to interact with thecollaboration content. The collaboration server 81 can also have a miner814 content. The collaboration server 81 can also have a miner 814 formore advanced mining. The view generator 813 is used to assembletogether collaboration elements that are part of a collaborationcontext. The context manager 812 maintains relationships betweencollaboration elements and provides a mechanism to inferencerelationships between collaboration elements. The collaboration manager811 also provides a mechanism to interact with various collaborationmodalities, like instant messaging 82, team rooms 83, and e-meetings 84.The collaboration manager 811 additionally maintains a life cycle ofcollaboration spaces.

While the invention has been described in terms of a single preferredembodiment, those skilled in the art will recognize that the inventioncan be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of theappended claims.

1. A method for collaborative Web browsing, comprising the steps of:defining collaboration spaces which comprise collaboration members anddiscussion chains; associating collaboration spaces with one or more Webdocuments, topics and meta data; defining a collaboration toolbar anddisplaying the collaboration toolbar on a user interface (UI), thecollaboration toolbar including a user UI components to logon/logoff,manage collaboration spaces, list related collaboration spaces, and listrelated links; defining a collaboration co-browser which is displayed onthe UI; monitoring a user's browsing activity; and mining browsedcontent, URL (Universal Resource Locator) and meta data to determinerelated collaboration spaces.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising the step of populating the collaboration toolbar withappropriately related collaboration elements.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein upon user selection of an appropriately related collaborationspace from the toolbar, further comprising the step of rendering by thecollaboration co-browser a collaboration space related to the content,URL and meta data of a loaded Web page.
 4. The method of claim 1,further comprising the step of allowing a user to instantiatecollaboration operations from the collaboration co-browser.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising the step of augmenting by thecollaboration co-browser a Web browser and displaying collaborationelements of an appropriate collaboration space corresponding to theuser's monitored browsing activity.
 6. A system for collaborative Webbrowsing, comprising: means for associating collaboration spaces withone or more Web documents, topics and meta data; means for definingcollaboration spaces which comprise collaboration members and discussionchains; a display device for displaying a graphical user interface; acollaboration toolbar component which generates a collaboration toolbardisplay on the graphical user interface, the collaboration toolbarincluding a user logon/logoff toggle button, buttons to manage andconfigure the collaboration spaces, a list box of related collaborationspaces, and a list box of related links; a collaboration co-browsercomponent which generates a collaboration co-browser display on thegraphical user interface when a user logons on; a monitor that observesa user's browsing activity, the collaboration co-browser componentresponding to the monitor and displaying collaboration elements of anappropriate collaboration space; and a mining component to mine thebrowsed content, URL (Universal Resource Locator), and meta data todetermine related collaboration spaces.
 7. The system of claim 6,wherein upon mining the browsed content by the mining component, themonitored browsing activity populates the collaboration toolbarcomponent with appropriately related collaboration elements.
 8. Thesystem of claim 6, wherein the collaboration co-browser componentrenders a collaboration space related to browser context.
 9. The systemof claim 6, wherein collaboration operations are instantiated from thecollaboration co-browser.
 10. The method of claim 4, whereincollaboration operations include sending email, instant messaging,creating new discussion threads, and posting and responding todiscussions.
 11. The system of claim 6, further comprising means forpopulating the collaboration toolbar with appropriately relatedcollaboration elements.
 12. The system of claim 6, wherein thecollaboration co-browser is responsive to a selection of anappropriately related collaboration space from the toolbar for renderinga collaboration space related to the content, URL and meta data of aloaded Web page.
 13. The system of claim 6, wherein the collaborationco-browser renders a collaboration space related to the content, URL andmeta data of a loaded Web page.
 14. A system for collaborative Webbrowsing, comprising; an augmented browser comprising an Internetbrowser, a collaboration toolbar, a collaboration explorer bar, amonitor, and a classifier provided with a miner plug-in, the Internetbrowser populates with Web sites and notifies the monitor when newdocuments arrive, the monitor, in turn, attempts to classify the newlyloaded content using the classifier, the classifier uses the content,URL (Universal Resource Locator) or meta data associated with the loadedpage and passes this information to the miner plug-in in order toidentify content to determine page, topic or meta data content, themonitor then attempts to discover related collaboration spaces(CollabSpaces), URL links, and role players that might be helpful to theloaded content in the Internet browser, once the monitor has completedclassifying the content and collecting the related collaborationcontext, the monitor instructs the toolbar and the explorer bar topopulate with corresponding collaborative elements that are related to acurrent browsing context; and a collaboration server component thatmaintains collaborative content and allows for the collaborative Webbrowser to interact with the collaboration content, the collaborationserver component including a view generator used to assemble togethercollaboration elements that are part of a collaboration context and acontext manager communicating with the collaboration toolbar, monitorand view generator and which maintains relationships betweencollaboration elements and provides a mechanism to inferencerelationships between collaboration elements and elements inferrelationships between collaboration elements.
 15. The system of claim14, wherein the collaboration server component further includes a minercommunicating with the miner plug-in of the augmented browser for moreadvanced mining.
 16. The system of claim 14, wherein the collaborationserver component further includes a collaboration manager communicatingwith the collaboration explorer bar of the augmented browser and whichprovides a mechanism to interact with various collaboration modalities,including instant messaging, team rooms, and e-meetings.
 17. The systemof claim 14, wherein the collaboration toolbar of the augmented browserhosts command buttons to retrieve, manage contextual collaborationspaces and command buttons for authentication and configuration.
 18. Thesystem of claim 17, wherein the command buttons include a pull down menubutton which, when selected, provides a list of collaboration spacesaccessible by the user based on a current context, a managecollaboration spaces button which invokes a collaboration spaceadministrative console through which new collaboration spaces can becreated and existing collaboration spaces edited, and a recommended URLlist pull down menu button which, when selected, provides a list ofrecommended URLs that are relevant to a current collaboration context.19. The system of claim 18, wherein the command buttons include alogon/logoff toggle button used for logging onto and logging off from acollaboration space server.
 20. The system of claim 14, wherein thecollaboration explorer bar of the augmented browser is displayed as awindow that includes a members pane, which lists current collaboratingmembers, and a discussions pane, which lists discussion chains in acollaboration permitting a collaboration member to post and respond todiscussions or create new discussion threads.
 21. The system of claim14, wherein the collaboration tool bar and the collaboration explorerbar are registered in an operating system (OS) registry.
 22. The systemof claim 21, wherein communication between the collaboration toolbar,the collaboration explorer bar and the context manager are facilitatedby a Java Script communication medium.
 23. The system of claim 14,wherein the collaboration server component includes a security modulethat identifies users and classifies those users as various role playersin the system.